Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Sam is an ‘unlucky’, clumsy orphan who is aging out of the foster system – at eighteen, she must start living on her own, even though she doesn’t want to leave. With constant misfortune on her side, it takes a lucky penny and a talking cat to change her life forever.
Directed by Peggy Holmes and Javier Abad, and written by Kiel Murray, Jonathan Aibel, and Glenn Berger, “Luck” is a animated film that takes viewers on a colorful fantasy ride to a world where “good luck” is manufactured by Leprechauns, with their overlord being a beautiful pink dragon. “Bad Luck” is produced a few floors below by “monsters,” and a machine helps spread the various kinds of luck randomly in the human world. Sam (Eva Noblezada) discovers this magical world of luck by following a black cat named Bob (Simon Pegg) after he leaves her a lucky penny, which brings her incredible luck, but she loses it within a day. Sam is desperate to get another one of those pennies to help out a little girl from her orphanage so that she can find her “forever home”.
The animation by Skydance Animation studio is very Disney-like, with colorful-catchy settings and characters that have big puppy-like eyes. So Sam resembles a modern day Disney princess, who is largely in a green uniform in the film. The world-building is fascinating, with some of its elements reminiscent of movies like “Zootopia”, “Minions”, and “Sing”. For example, the pigs in “Luck” immediately reminded me of the characters Rosita and Gunter from “Sing”.
I wasn’t a big fan of Sam’s character – even though she is supposed to be an “unlucky” orphan, her character is surprisingly entitled. She stalks Bob, a talking cat, and demands that he lend her another lucky penny. Why should he? He doesn’t owe her anything. But since Sam loses Bob’s penny, the two strike a deal to help each other steal another one. Thanks to Sam’s clumsiness, she causes a lot of problems and a pretty big crisis in the ‘luck’ world, but fortunately, her new friends help her out. One of the funniest characters in the film was Jeff, a talkative unicorn, who is German, and is voiced by Flula Borg. Jane Fonda lends her voice to the Dragon, another likable creature, who envisions a world where nobody suffers from any misfortune.
With a runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes, “Luck” is quite entertaining in the first half, but the last twenty minutes are dragged out. The ultimate message of the movie is well-intentioned but harebrained: good luck is good, but bad luck can be good too. The creators want to show that unlucky incidents can lead to happy outcomes, like Sam’s constant misfortunes eventually leading her to incredible new friends and experiences. However, the climactic execution of this message doesn’t pack a punch.
Overall, “Luck” is a fun family-friendly film and is worth a one-time watch.
Rating: 6 on 10. Stream it on Apple TV+
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